Trans-Afghan gas project gets under way

Apr 18, 2012

Nezavisimaya gazeta

Victoria Panfilova

Source: ITAR-TASS

On 18 April in Ashkhabad, Pakistan and Turkmenistan are to sign an agreement on construction of the Turkmenistan–Afghanistan–Pakistan–India gas pipeline (TAPI). Previously, similar documents were signed between Afghanistan and India. The project may alter the situation in the region by changing the energy status in the member countries and creating new jobs.

It
took the TAPI project participants twenty years to agree on the key issues and
come within reach of launching the project. Today, the quantities of
Turkmenistan’s gas, its prices and establishment of a consortium to build the
pipeline are under discussion.

The
idea of bringing Turkmenistan’s gas to South Asian markets has been mooted
since the 1990s. In 1993, the Argentine company Bridas proposed a “Central
Asian Gas Pipeline” project. Later, the American Unocal headed up the international
Cent-Gas consortium set up in 1996. But the unstable situation in Afghanistan
prevented the project from being launched. The name of the project has changed
several times over the last two decades, depending on the countries and
companies showing an interest in it, but it only existed on paper anyway. A
game-changing event was the May 2010 visit to Delhi by Turkmenistan‘s President
Gurbanguly Berdymukhamedov, when India evinced an interest in importing gas. As
early as December 2010, a summit of the four states held in Ashkhabad gave a new
lease of life to the TAPI project.

“Security was, for a long time, the main obstacle to
implementing TAPI. A large stretch of the pipeline will be laid through
unstable parts of Afghanistan and Pakistan. Kabul and Islamabad have assured
the other participants that they will be able to protect the pipeline from
militants. Kabul is ready to commit 7,000 troops to doing so. The authorities
are also negotiating with the warlords to ensure the safety of the pipeline”,
Omar Nessar, Director of the Contemporary Afghanistan Studies Centre told Nezavisimaya Gazeta. In his opinion,
Kabul expects help in protecting the gas pipeline, but Washington, though
supportive of the idea, has not come forward with any concrete proposals.
Pakistan intends to secure the pipeline itself. But international forces may
also be brought in to protect it. In any case, at the UN, Berdymukhamedov is
advocating creation of international mechanisms and a special agency to secure
safe transit of gas to the world markets.

In
the initial stages, Ashkhabad intends to export 33 billion cubic metres of gas
a year, though that will not tap the whole potential. Turkmenistan’s experts
note that demand for gas on the Indian and Pakistani markets might grow to 186
billion cubic metres a year over the next ten years. “Delhi and Islamabad have
their own resources of up to 100 billion cubic metres. That means that, in the
next decade, they will have to import 90 billion cubic metres of Turkmenistan’s
gas to meet their needs”, the report says.

A
Pakistani delegation led by the Federal Minister for Oil and Natural Resources
Asim Hussein will arrive in Ashkhabad to sign the agreement on 17–18 April. The
agreement was to be signed last year, but differences arose over prices,
according to his secretary Mohammed Chodri Ejaz. Now the principles for forming
the international consortium and financing the project remain to be agreed upon.
Major US and Russian companies have shown an interest in the TAPI project. The
final agreement is to be signed at the next meeting of the Trans-Afghan project
partners in Ashkhabad on 24 May.

India
and Pakistan would like a share in developing the Galkynysh gas field where construction
of the pipeline will begin. The $10 billion, 1,735 km TAPI pipeline will run from
Turkmenistan through the Afghan cities of Herat and Kandahar to Fazilka on the
Indian-Pakistani border. First supplies are planned for 2015.